Yearning to Breathe Free-My Parents' Fight to Reunite during the Holocaust

by Murray Jack Laulicht

Overview

My Parents' Fight to Reunite during the Holocaust

Murray Jack Laulicht with Peter Weisz

On February 1, 1940, Ernestyna Goldwasser arrived alone in New York Harbor. She had left behind her family, to seek sanctuary from the marauding Germans, who had invaded Poland the previous fall.

As the child of a father who held US citizenship, Ernestyna enjoyed a special status, as she too, was deemed a US citizen. Unfortunately, her husband, Chaskel, enjoyed no such status. As his wife, pregnant with their first child, embarked on her journey, Chaskel was forced to remain behind, trapped in the inferno that was soon to engulf and incinerate one third of the world's Jewish population.

During her valiant struggle to reunite with her husband, they maintained an intimate and highly emotional correspondence. Many of their letters have been preserved and are presented in this volume as a first-person account of their desperate struggle to find the key that would unlock Chaskel's imprisonment...before it was too late.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789652298645
Publisher:	Gefen Publishing House
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Murray Jack Laulicht holds a BA from Yeshiva College and an LLB summa cum laude from Columbia University School of Law. After serving on the staff of the Warren Commission and clerking for the Honorable Harold R. Medina of the US Court of Appeals in New York City, he practiced law for more than forty years. He is a Chairman Emeritus of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, President of the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, and a member of the boards of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Stern College for Women, Ohr Torah Stone, and Jewish Federations in Florida and New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction xi

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xxi

Chapter 1 A World between the Walls 1

Chapter 2 Jakob's Gift 11

Chapter 3 A Ray of Hope 23

Chapter 4 Mother of Exiles February-March 1940 33

Chapter 5 Flight and Frustration April-May 1940 53

Chapter 6 Closing the Golden Door June-July 1940 77

Chapter 7 "The Roads Are Closed" August-December 1940 95

Chapter 8 "Here Everything Has Changed" January-June 1941 125

Chapter 9 Living on Hope July 1941-April 1942 143

Chapter 10 Records of My Father's Journey 153

Chapter 11 The Search for Abraham Goldwasser 167

Chapter 12 My Second Father 191

Chapter 13 The Results of Their Sacrifices 213

Epilogue: The Next Generations 241

The Hasten Family 242

The Hirt Family 244

The Davis Family 246

The Herschmann Family 249

Index 253